Phone hacking: Bobby Davro is suing the former publisher of the News of the World. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
Bobby Davro and his former wife Trudi have become the latest public figures to sue the former publisher of the News of the World over alleged phone hacking.
The comedian filed a civil action under his real name, Robert Nankeville, at the high court in London last week against News Group Newspapers, the News International subsidiary that published the now-closed News of the World and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who used to work for the paper.
Davro and his ex-wife Trudi, a former model, were the subject of intense tabloid interest in the early 2000s. The pair eventually divorced in 2004.
The pair are the latest in a new wave of civil litigants to have filed legal claims against Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper group and Mulcaire in recent months. Mark Lewis, the solicitor for several alleged phone-hacking victims, told an Australian broadcaster last week that News Group Newspapers could face "80 or 100" new lawsuits over the scandal.
Lewis said that the new litigants would be alleged "secondary victims", those he described as "the collateral damage of someone's phone being hacked".
David Beckham's father, Ted, filed legal papers at the high court in recent weeks, as did two individuals named Matthew Doyle and Joyce Matheson.
Others who have filed claims include the wife of the former prime minister, Cherie Blair; the man wrongly accused of murdering Rachel Nickell, Colin Stagg; TV personalities Jamie Theakston and Jeff Brazier; former boxer Chris Eubank; and footballers Peter Crouch, Kieron Dyer and Jermaine Jenas.
News International has already settled with more than 50 phone-hacking victims, including the parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, Steve Coogan, Charlotte Church, Jude Law, Sienna Miller and former Labour cabinet ministers Lord Prescott and Tessa Jowell.
Initial stages of the latest phone hacking claims at the high court in London are being overseen by judge chief master Winegarten.
Lawyers for some of the alleged victims are also exploring the possibility of suing Murdoch's media empire in the US, claiming their celebrity clients' voicemails were unlawfully intercepted while in America.
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